Plenty to blame for interrogation tactics

Sometime late in 2005, the CIA destroyed videotapes showing hundreds of hours of interrogations of two top al-Qaida suspects - while continuing to imply to the 9/11 commission and the courts that no such interrogation tapes ever existed.

What was on those tapes that made CIA officials so eager to destroy them, instead of just selling them to the producers of "24" and retiring in comfort? And who authorized (or knew of) their destruction?

Not our national Decider, who insists, via White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, that he didn't decide anything whatsoever, because he has "no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction." That's in contrast to former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers, who apparently knew all about the tapes but didn't bother to share the news with her boss.

Unidentified administration sources assure us, though, that Miers recommended that the CIA preserve the tapes. (It's not hard to imagine her words: "Gee, if these interrogation tapes just happened to be lost or destroyed, it would sure make it tough for anyone to bring future war crimes or torture prosecutions against anyone in this administration, so I hope the CIA will take really good care of those tapes.")

Over at the CIA, another unidentified "former official" said no one at the White House ever ordered the CIA not to destroy the tapes - at least not in so many words: "They never told us, 'Hell, no,"' that official told The New York Times. And current and former officials said that the CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, was in on the whole discussion about the tapes. Still another anonymous "official" asserted that Rizzo was out of the loop and "angry" at the tapes' destruction.

When it was his turn to pass the buck, current CIA Director Michael V. Hayden helpfully reminded Congress that he wasn't even at the CIA in 2005 and therefore had no idea who ordered that the tapes be destroyed, although he naturally intends to look into it.

As the president told ABC News, "It will be interesting to know what the true facts are." Uh-huh. But in many ways, the question of who ordered that the tapes be destroyed completely misses the point. It probably won't be all that difficult to answer that question - congressional inquiries are fairly good at that sort of thing. We may even see some prosecutions come out of this, because the tapes were, arguably, crucial evidence in criminal prosecutions and other legal proceedings. Those who want heads to roll for this probably will get their way.

But so what? In this case, as blogger and Georgetown professor Marty Lederman reminds us: "The cover-up is not worse than the crime, and they knew it. Those tapes must have depicted pretty gruesome evidence of serious criminal conduct." Waterboarding? For sure, according both to news accounts and to former CIA operative John Kiriakou. Other "enhanced" forms of interrogation that, to the unenhanced eye, would look indistinguishable from plain torture? It's a pretty good bet. If I had to guess, the tapes were destroyed because obstruction-of-justice charges are no big deal compared with war-crimes charges.

After we find out who authorized the destruction of the tapes, the true who-done-it will remain: Who gave the CIA the green light to use interrogation methods that the agency surely suspected were criminal? Who decided to let the United States adopt the interrogation methods of a hundred tin-pot dictators?

Answering that one will be far more uncomfortable. It would be nice to find a scapegoat (Aha! It was Dick Cheney!), but the unpleasant truth is that the blame is pretty widespread.

So ... who really done it?

Cheney, presumably, and the sinister little gnomes on his staff, and the checked-out Decider, who either knew and didn't care, or didn't care to know. And the CIA leadership and a whole cadre of operatives, who were willing to try a long list of discredited shortcuts they could borrow from our enemies. And blame the conservative punditocracy, which eagerly defended enhanced interrogation methods. And let's not forget the GOP leadership in Congress, which gave the administration a whole book of blank checks.

But save some blame for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who apparently uttered not a word of dismay when briefed in 2002 on enhanced interrogation methods that included waterboarding, and for quite a few other congressional Democrats as well, who thought that ignoring and overlooking administration criminality was a legitimate form of congressional oversight. And we can blame ourselves, too, collectively. After all, we're the nation that made "24" a hit show.

How does a democracy come to adopt a policy of torturing detainees? To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, it takes a village.

The scum who make up the terrorist community and their screwed up society have no regard for others, why should we have regard for them?

As for all those poor innocents that were tortured, how does anyone know that even one innocent was tortured? You terrorist huggers are just assuming that anyone in the hands of the US government has been tortured.

Terrorists deserve it and should be tortured, if necessary, to extract any useful information.

If torturing some scumbag terrorist would save the life of even one American or one of our allies, then all I can remind them is this... hook the black lead to the negative terminal and the red lead to the positive one...

I found Rosa Brooks article rather foolish as her arguements seem based on mysterious, nameless nonentities. I should think it's hard to build a case using the testimony of such.

This brouhaha seems fully political in nature. Those bearing such vindictive malevolence toward the current administration or the CIA will have to do much better than unidentified sources if they desire some sort of conviction.

Those of you who condemn torture seem to have a common theme of, "it's what separates us from them".

Americans are not saints.

I know this is hard for a puratanical-based, holier-than-thou, self-righteous society like the United States of America to understand, but citizens of the USA are no better than citizens of any other country.

scenebooster (Anonymous) says:
jayhawklawrence says....
"OK, here's the scenario. A crazy terrorist knows the location of the Nuke set to blow up on Red Square. It is okay to allow Putin to torture the guy and find out where the nuke is?"

And our very own Terrorist Rights Advocate, Scenebooster, says...
Stop watching "24" - this is not a realistic scenario.

Let's change a few words, scenebooster, and speek reel slow so you get it...."OK, here's the scenario. A crazy terrorist knows the location of the PILOTS set to blow up on TWIN TOWERS. It is okay to allow BUSH to torture the guy and find out where the PILOT is?"

I've no problem with that, if it's true. See, that doesn't matter to me.

Let's look at exactly (not a parsed snippet) what I wrote:

"I've no problem with that, if it's true. See, that doesn't matter to me. What matters is that torture is a terrible thing for America to take part in."

Which was an answer to your statement of:

"My point is that we should acknowledge that the policy has been in place for 12 years. What possible problem could anyone have with acknowledging that?"

That (at the end of your sentence) being the previously mentioned policy. That's what I had no problem with. My "that" was referring to your "that." Cripes. It's called reading comprehension. Try it sometime.